Community Forums

dennismhamm · 01-06-2015, 05:08 AM

last night i was running my heat pumps and the fan would turn off but you could hear the compressor still running and then the ac heat pump would shut down completely and would not come back on unless i turned the thermostat off and then back on then the heat pump would start again and run for a while and then end up shutting down again. It was 34 degrees out side would this cause the problem?

docj · 01-06-2015, 07:12 AM

At those temperatures the efficiency of a heat pump goes way down and they spend much of their time reversing themselves to melt ice on the outside coil. It sounds as if yours was reversing then shutting itself off (that's why you heard the compressor but no fan). By turning it off then on again you were tricking it into working but it would just ice up again and shut down. You ought to use your furnace or whatever other auxiliary heat source you have.

pcurt23 · 01-06-2015, 07:28 AM

Docj has a good answer. My heat pumps will work down to about 45 degrees and then it is time for space heaters or the furnace. Close to freezing it is furnace time to heat the water bays.

Koop · 01-06-2015, 03:02 PM

The Duo-Therm Comfort Control on my heat pumps automatically switches to auxiliary heat from the LPG furnace when it's that cold. If the outside air temperature warms, it will shut off the furnace and activate the pumps.

Mike & Mike · 01-08-2015, 11:02 PM

Hi Dennis,

About a week ago, with outside temps of about 36, I was running the front heat pump when it started to sound funny. My first thought was to turn it off but I looked very closely at the display on the thermostat and saw the word "Defrost". This is the first time I'd ever seen the word Defrost on the thermostat.

I searched some of the other iRV2 forums and it seems that "under 40 degrees" is just too cold to be using a heat pump.

Cheers!

Mr_D · 01-08-2015, 11:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Koop

The Duo-Therm Comfort Control on my heat pumps automatically switches to auxiliary heat from the LPG furnace when it's that cold. If the outside air temperature warms, it will shut off the furnace and activate the pumps.

Yep, same with ours

Monacoach · 01-09-2015, 07:32 AM

Perfectly normal. It goes into defrost mode for a few minutes then the fan will come back on. Nothing wrong with your heat pump . When ours goes into defrost mode I let it defrost then shut ir down and switch to an alternate source of heat. When the sun rises in the morning and the temps are still in the 30s, and the sun is shining on your airconditioner the heat pump should produce some good heat.